Yeah, if you know who the characters are that are listed in the main pairing, incest should really not be a surprise ever. If we're going to talk about fanfiction commenter gripes, though, man: 1) The commenter who tells you they love your writing but wish you'd write some other subject matter that they prefer. I had two of these on my old House of Ill Faith series. One wouldn't read slash and the other wouldn't read het, and it was a story about an ensemble cast with a mixed bag of sexualities, so they were both missing half the plot. Not my fault you're confused, especially since you can just skip over the boning if you're only there for the plot. 2) The commenter who can't tell the difference between a writer bashing characters and a character with a different perspective airing his or her feelings about those characters' actions in a thoughtful and possibly even persuasive manner. Even if I liked Dumbledore I still would write Slytherins criticising him for bullshit things he actually does, like that House Cup business, and the part where he really does often seem to care more about whether students suck up to him than how much help they need. And I have a lot of sympathy for Stan Pines but that doesn't mean I won't write young Ford explaining the reasons for his pissiness in painful detail, including the ones where he really did have a point. Like the part where fucking up someone's scholarship options is heinous, but even more so during the era when not going to college got you drafted and sent to Vietnam, unless you were a vagabond con artist who never stays anywhere for very long. 3) The commenter who argues with other commenters. I complimented a writer for doing an AU Cronus that I actually felt badly for and didn't want to drown in acid for being a rapey bastard and one of the Cronus stans got up in my face in the comments with the usual backrub bullshit. And the fic writer defended me. And lo, there was wank. Don't start wank with other readers in the comments of somebody else's fic.
The only time I don't tag for incest is with Kencyrath fic. Because incest is just such a major part of the canon that, really, it's not something that needs to be tagged. People know that the biggest ship is two twins. They also know that canonically this is being shipped.
Physically impossible things are often subtler than the ones I mentioned before, and those are annoying too. See the time when a character grabbed someone's head between two hands and cut the ropes on his ankles at the same time; an unfortunate case of what the Turkey City Lexicon refers to as Ing Disease. The times when the character is suddenly holding an item there was no mention of before and there was nowhere they could conceivably have hidden it. To take an example I remember vividly, I know the Gorillaz are cartoon characters but I'm pretty sure they still don't have the ability to pull shotguns out of thin air.
His brain is in his other pants pocket, or perhaps in his phone. Yeah, I think you're right on why people will shrug an acceptance at the ghosts and skeletons but protest the more-plausible monsters. If they resemble irl life forms, it's easy to want to draw from reality for inspiration. On the topic of carnivores, have you heard of the recent product called Beyond Burger? They're using pea protein and heating/cooling/pressurizing it to simulate the creation of meat. Plant-based meat. I don't think it's to the point that obligate carnivores would be good, but scientists sure are working to the point of meat from animals being optional.
I would believe his brain's in his phone! Sadly.... Pea protein is actually terrible for cats. It is frequently used in "grain free" cat foods that do not actually contain enough protein because the humans who buy cat food think eating veggies is healthier than eating grain. This is true for humans. But not for cats. Pea protein its not as bad as wheat protein because it doesn't provoke some of the reactions gluten can, but it's still basically junk food for felines. (This knowledge comes to me from two years of taking care of a diabetic cat. We fixed his diabetes by eliminating plants from his diet; he'd still be alive, but he had an aneurysm. Many cats get really, really sick from the plant-heavy dry foods we feed them. Unfortunately, they often like these foods because they're junk food with flavourings that are semi-addictive, just like human junk food.) Plant based meats for people usually are an attempt to simulate the taste and texture of (well cooked) meat, rather than the actual nutritional components, often because they are made by people who don't believe that humans are healthier when they eat a certain amount of meat that is probably much smaller than the amount most Americans consume. They can't simulate the taste and texture of rare meat, though. And they don't contain the full range of amino acids obligate carnivores require. In terms of laboratory created meat, I think we're going to get better results with cloning animal muscle (although we will have to 'exercise' it some since it won't be attached to a whole live animal) than we are ever going to get from vegetable sources, both in terms of protein needs for obligate carnivores, and taste and texture for people who do not eat their meat ground up and well-cooked. There's an additional problem for obligate carnivores in that they need to consume bone and organ meats to get all the nutrition they need. Your cat can't live on muscle meat alone, which is why there are "meat by-products" in cat food. Which hippie cat food retailers try to convince you are terrible for your cat, and should be replaced by a nice healthy side of peas and carrots. UGH.
Ooh, I'd like add one. Aggressive demands for updates or sequels, particularly when the author has specifically asked that people not do that. I understand that these comments are probably well meant, as expressions of great interest and enthusiasm, but they're so uncomfortable to read. I don't even write fanfiction, I just hate the idea of people getting pelted with stress grenades for making something people like. Way to create a nurturing environment, guys.
I just read some insufficiently explicit sex scenes where for the positioning to happen as described the female character would be doing the penetrating. That's fine but I can't tell if she was supposed to be trans, wearing a strapon, or if the author either got seriously anatomically confused or did a find-replace with the names from a yaoi scene, and I don't dare ask.
Alternately, tentabulges or something similar, but usually there's a bit of a heads-up that that's a headcanon the author is using.
hey friends here's a trope that constantly gets on my nerves: depressed character is depressed. depressed character falls in love. person they like reciprocates and helps them to stop their unhealthy behaviors and depression. depressed character will never be depressed again! like that's not how that works
I can't stand it as a trope The Power Of Love™️ is not a fix-all and it's been very poorly done every time I've seen it used and I hate it
Oh, and I just remembered it being proposed as a real-life cure for autism! Something about oxytocin.
I no longer have the link, but I remember hearing about one in which a character's autism was cured by having a foursome.
[distant, muffled sound of Tez ranting about people saying Kaladin's character arc reversed in Words of Radiance because his depression didn't magically disappear overnight]
